Liar, Liar

A fresh line of ridiculous, offensive lying from Kamala Harris:

“The average tax refund is down about $170 compared to last year. Let’s call the President’s tax cut what it is: a middle-class tax hike to line the pockets of already wealthy corporations and the 1%.”

What is the reason to vote for this useless, dishonest creature, seriously? That she’s not Trump? Big freaking deal.

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7 thoughts on “Liar, Liar”

The IRS warned months ago that many people were under-withheld for 2018 due to changes in the tax law and would be writing checks this year. According to Forbes today, the number of returns claiming refunds is down 5% at this point from last year. The early returns are usually the people claiming the largest refunds, so drawing any conclusions about how refunds are going for the year is premature. However, the IRS’s own analysis supports Harris’ statements. I don’t think your experience is typical of what most Americans are going to see this year.

Your first sentence and your last sentence are in direct contradiction. You are absolutely right when you say at the start that this is about a different strategy of withholding that lets people keep more of their paycheck during the year.

Harris, on the other hand, says that this is a result of “a tax hike on the middle class.” We all know there was no tax hike. Taxes were lowered for 80% of the population. She knows it and she’d lying.

I’m tendentious so saying “average” to me is misleading when “median” would be much more accurate. [People hate when you point that shit out and say you have a negative attitude. ]

So anyone saying the average refund is down $170 or up by $40 is just playing fast and loose with mathematical concepts. The whole flow of the tax season is off due to the government shutdown. People who’d normally file early got spooked by the government shutdown and then the drama about whether the government would close again in another two weeks. Then there was the whole forcing IRS employees to come in during the shutdown without pay because if refunds weren’t issued the one tangible Republican accomplishment would fall the fuck apart.

Most people aren’t going to make a distinction between “I had less withheld so I had a smaller refund or now I owe (but I got to use that money during the year) ” and “I had my taxes hiked.”

It’s kind of like how everyone says the “economy is doing great/badly!” based on how they’re doing personally or how they feel about the future. You can explain concepts, but for most people it will not penetrate.

My family was really affected last year when they stopped accepting a large number of itemizations. It put us about two thousand dollars behind on my sister’s tuition payment. For those people who rely on itemization, it really does seem like a tax hike. And the state taxes did get a hike in my state, so even if we did get more back on our federal taxes, we get less back on state taxes.

Our state taxes also went up. But that’s because the Republican tax cut was allowed to expire. Which I support. I’m a lot more supportive of state taxes than federal because at least state taxes don’t go towards endless wars.

The change in itemization penalizes people in states with high property taxes — basically what is now the Democratic bastions on both coasts. For many of those people, this is a tax increase, and I’m certainly one of them. For most, it’s a tax cut only if roughly $20/week matters. However, this year, underwithholding means underpayment penalties, which can negate the cut. Anyway, I wouldn’t quibble about this now; we’ll see what the IRS reports at the end of the tax season. While I think Harris is excessively brash, as are many of the newbies in Congress this year, her comments probably reflect the experience of her constituents in California.